Spotlight

Spotlight

Each issue of Masonry Design features a profile of an architectural or engineering firm, or individual professionals. Learn what these people and/or their firms have done to make a name for themselves, and what landmark projects may be on the horizon.

The 200-mile drive across northern Wisconsin was typical even as a first-time adventure. Route 29 east and the roads from Eau Claire were easy to follow to Peshtigo. Abandoning the office and the design environment to locate and research materials for special building applications is a well-developed firm practice.

For more than 85 years, the Franklin County Courthouse has been a cornerstone of the National Register–listed Main Street Historic District in Greenfield, Mass. Its classical revival style, with Corinthian columns, a pedimented Greek temple-like entrance and decorative brickwork, helped the courthouse stand out as a symbol of justice rooted in ancient democratic traditions.

This was no ordinary brick laying. Forty-one years after Atlanta Braves slugger Hank Aaron hit his historic 715th home run — the one that surpassed Babe Ruth’s all-time record — he carefully slid a trowel with mortar across a red brick and placed it alongside another emblazoned with words commemorating the start of construction of the Braves’ new stadium, SunTrust Park.

Sponsored content: Look around you. If you are in an urban or suburban environment, chances are that many of the buildings and other structures in your environment are built with masonry. From concrete block home foundations to elegant stone facades, from contemporary concrete veneers to classic brick buildings, the beauty, strength, and durability of masonry construction enhances our enjoyment and increases the value of the built environment almost wherever we go.

We’re all familiar with the tales from the Brothers Grimm, the 19th-century German authors whose stories still haunt and entertain us today. Their work – “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Cinderella,” “Rapunzel,” “Snow White,” and “Hansel & Gretel,” for example – still is being adapted into new books, movies, and TV shows today. And the brothers themselves are getting a little more recognition in their home country in the form of a new museum.

Tom Livingston, president of the Village of La Grange, Ill., reflects with fondness on the Stone Avenue Train Station. “My father took the train out of this station for forty years. It’s a real workhorse,” he said.

It’s not every day that one receives a call from a priest requesting one’s design services for a new church. But if that day comes, you’re certainly going to pick up the phone. That’s exactly what Duncan G. Stroik, Architect, LLC., did in 2012.

After a decade of planning and roughly three years of construction, a hospital consisting of 118,000 square feet of thin stone, 5,400 tons of steel, 19,700 yards of concrete, and 18 million feet of cable opened its state-of-the-art doors. Virtua Voorhees, “The Hospital of the Future” as it is known, is situated on 125 acres in Voorhees, a New Jersey suburb within the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area.

Since it opened in November 2011, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has attracted more than one million visitors to Bentonville, Ark., a once sleepy small town now known to the world as the headquarters for Walmart.